Failure, failure, failure everywhere. This fall’s election for first-year undergraduate Senate has been nothing short of a multitude of failures at all levels within Student Government.

It all began Monday morning at 12:01 a.m. when freshman Senate Candidate Kristy Craig logged onto the voting Web site to cast her first vote in the election. Like most people would, she looked for her name to check first.

But there is a problem. Her name was left off the ballot.

Craig, a freshman in political science, said of her initial reaction, “I was flipping out,” after noticing she couldn’t vote for herself. It was this observation that set in motion a chain of events of people shifting blame and with the resignation of the Technical Administrator for Elections T. Greg Doucette.

Immediately after spotting the mistake, Craig called Election Commission Chair Megan Peters to inform her of the problem.

It was after this notification and discussion that came late Wednesday night that the initial first-year undergraduate election would be overturned, on two appeals, because of the errors, and a new election was called for next Monday and Tuesday.

All this in spite of Craig winning a seat. This decision is now being appealed by several of the victorious candidates to the Judicial Board, which has the final say in election appeal matters.

The question that must be answered now is what went wrong and who’s at fault for the many failures. After examining all the facts of this failed election, I believe that there are three people who bear the responsibility of the flawed election: Doucette, Peters and Student Body President Will Quick. They must be held accountable.

As the technical administrator, Doucette was responsible for creating the ballot, placing it online and maintaining the technical side of the election. It was with his initial mistake of not entering Craig’s name onto the online ballot that set the failed election in motion. With Doucette personally recognizing his mistake, he decided to resign as the technical administrator. As Doucette said in a memorandum, “This mistake has called my competence into question … ” It was an appeal from Doucette that has caused the new election. With Doucette taking it upon himself to be the fall guy, it appears to me he is trying to shift the blame from the other two.

Quick has been hesitant to accept any blame, however. Up until about 8:55 p.m. on Wednesday the commission only had three confirmed members (it now has four), when it should have nine, according to student body statutes. It was up to Quick to appoint eight of these commissioners.

As of early Thursday morning, he had only made three of the eight appointments.

This failure contradicts a pledge he made during the campaign.

In his platform on his Web site, Quick stated, “I pledge to have made all appointments by the last day of classes in this spring semester.” Quick even acknowledged the job had not been done when I spoke with him Tuesday evening. Having such a small commission has been a cause for the failed elections. The commission is being overworked and in doing so, has made mistakes.

In addition to Doucette and Quick, Election Commission Chair Megan Peters has to bear much responsibility for the failure. While Quick broke a promise he made to students during his campaign, Peters and her commission broke student body statutes.

By my count, Peters and her commission broke at least four major and two minor statutes, including the following:

-7-1.25 Final Ballot

-7-2.10. Duties of the Chair of the Commission. (2a à reports)

-7-2.25. Voter Guide.

-7-2.27. Elections Web site.

-7-2.31. Test of Voting System.

-7-3.16. Appeals of an Election.

Peters has served as vice chair and now chair of the Election Commission, and to violate these important statutes, especially since it has caused great frustration and uncertainty for the candidates, is unacceptable.

Only time will tell what’s next. I for one would like to tell the freshmen how much I feel for them. This fiasco will cause them unnecessary stress — stress they don’t deserve. All the freshmen, especially the candidates, deserve more. It looks to me that the executive branch of Student Government needs work, unlike the senate, treasury and judicial parts of Student Government, which are doing their jobs.

E-mail Matt at [email protected].